Don’t please, just say ‘please’.

Twin Scare

I am not a great believer in the occult. But, there have been times of mesmerising helplessness when I start adoring the devil which ceases to exist without the goodness around us.

But, Veronica has nothing to do with goodness, though. It’s about pain, recklessness, human disdain and much beyond, our hemisphere.

I thought the eclipse and the game of calling the spirits conflicted each other well, and quite imminently, become the soul play of this dread woven tale.

You have the usual jittery elements of a horror flick – A blind sister called ‘Sister Death’ who can see what others cannot, a family which is disintegrated due to the woes of a single mother responsible for her 3 children and the unsurpassable quotient of the ‘Occult’.

But the young protagonist of this film, ‘Veronica’, looks believably naive and shattered by the conspicuous elements that consume her life. With the unsurpassable shadows that threaten to take her life away while having to protect her siblings, the character has some glorious shades of vulnerability that takes your breath away.

The penultimate scene when she is on the verge of being taken away, with a pinch of self destruction stands out in this reasonably clouted horror drama.

Annihilation

It is about the precarious conjunction of technology, vulnerabilities and life. Human beings like the unknown, and they despise it as well. The desire and passion to go beyond limits is our fantasy. But such fantasies of deep rooted resistance also comes with fatalities that could destroy the very meaning of human existence.

A research centre becomes an island of death. People go in, they don’t come out. The ones who did make it, are never the same again. Yes, it’s about the genius of human brain vetted with technology and invention. But, at the same time, we are so immersed in a life beyond us that it turns out that we might never return to our self when all this that mattered, looks so refreshingly curious and menacing.

‘Annihilation’ cannot be termed as a ‘Horror’ film, because it isn’t. ‘Horror’ relates to the unseen, unbred and evil. This, has none of them. Yes, the form factor is relevant and remarkably irrelevant at the same time. Though an impression of invincibility looms large over the plot and it’s equally tiltillating and dysfunctional characters, they still look convinced to get flushed and destroyed. They have their reasons to do it as well, which is another testimony to justify their indulgence in this will-not-make-it-back adventure.

Coupled with some stunning frames and close shave moments, ‘Annihilation’ is a myth that threatens to destroy our civilisation with caressing brutality.